Bunyip
"Great. Bloody great. Now every wanker out there with a mech's gonna want to 'ave a go..." -Bruce Dunn, upon Armourfall. =The Pilot= Personality Bruce Dunn is a man of contradictions: A coward who refuses to back down. Born with a family history of depression, autism and suicide, the simple cruelty of genetics had already stacked the odds against him before he had even left the womb. His parents tried, but he was a difficult child, unable to focus for long periods on anything that did not hold his interest, and relentless in his pursuit of those things that did catch his fancy. It was his mother, whom saw his single-mindedness as a strength. He gave Bruce his book collection on military history, from Alexander the Great on down, and Bruce devoured the knowledge. He decided that he wanted to be just like them. He paid scant attention to school, instead preferring to disappear into the world of his books. The only thing that was able to shake him from his autistic stupor was the suicide of the very same mother. The source of all the knowledge and joy the books had brought him was gone, and Bruce realized for the first time that there was a real world out there - and that it was cruel. Traumatised and shaken by the loss, he learned the meaning of fear, and hope was denied him. He retreated from the world - from school, from his friends, even from those members of his family that remained. He retreated for a full two years, and pondered on the life lesson that he had been taught. He knew that the same path his mother had taken beckoned to him - his father had been very frank about his odds after his mother was gone. Still, some part of him clung to the hope that someday it might be better. The next ten years, he spent slowly rebuilding himself. The spark of hope flamed into a fire of defiance, and he rejected his fate. He read self-help books on how to properly communicate and express in order to defy the autism. He threw himself into his writing, siphoning the poison of paranoia and delusion from his mind and quarantining it onto paper. He threw himself into slowly remaking himself into someone whom could survive. Unfortunately, he did so at the expense of bothering to pay attention to his schoolwork, and his grades suffered as a result. When he was 18 years old, he found that he had failed school and most jobs were denied to him. His main hope, the army, closed its doors the moment they heard of his condition. In the end, he managed to bluff his way into university with perfumed bullshit and found himself on some entry-level course that would eventually get him on the road to a degree. He found himself ready to step into the real world...and he paused. Years of living in fear and being told he was insufficient had set in, had become habit. Though the defiance stopped him from giving up, his own diseased mind kept him from ever really applying himself, of confronting his fear of the real world. So he simply coasted through university as he had school, without ever really trying. Two years in and no classes passed, and he was surfing /tg/, as he was wont to do when he ought to be studying, when the Armourfall happened. He now had the weapons and tools he required to become the conquering hero he had always desired to be. Again, the poison crept into his mind and told him that he didn't stand a chance. That REAL heroes would step on his corpse on their path to glory. So, he fled. Took his suit and ran as far away from the war as he could. There, in the darkness where no-one could find him, his descent into madness became complete. TBC Appearance Bruce Dunn reminds onlookers of a rat - thin, with sunken cheekbones and shory brown hair, his ice-blue eyes are never still. He always seems to be trying to look everywhere at once, as if constantly on the lookout for an ambush he just knows is coming. Though he is capable of perfect stillness and quietness, when he is not actively attempting to remain hidden he twitches and fidgets constantly, often muttering to himself as he does. His skin is tanned, emphasis of the time he spends outside of his suit, and it is dirty from his time living it rough. He is far from the picture of the knight in shining armour. Relations & Allies Bruce is his own worst enemy - his anxiety and depression constantly whisper to him of failure and defeat, causing him to doubt his skill and fail to take the risks required to ever truly excel. His abdication from the war has kept him from making any friends or enemies of note thus far. =The Suit= Bunyip was created as a manifestation of the fears and doubts that cloud whatever abilities Bruce might have under the surface. It is twisted and hunched, whatever surface it might have hidden under tattered, rotting rags that always seem to be the colour of their surroundings. It is small by the standards of Suits, barely enough to fit Bruce inside it, and it has no obvious armour plating of weapons visible on its form. Its weapons and capabilities are hidden under layers of decay, much like the suit's master. Attention seems to slide off of it, as if the armour is actively attempting to convince you it is beneath your notice. Despite this, it is packed with features designed purely to keep its master alive - an extension of the spark of defiance, the refusal to die no matter how deep his self-loathing runs. Suit Crunch